The story was originally posted by Riley_S in The Difference Between Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6

How is Wi-Fi 7 Different from WiFi 6? 

 

Changes and improvements to wireless technology are speeding up. It hasn't been that long since WiFi 6/6E was officially released. However, WiFi 7 is already popping up. Is WiFi 7 too early? Is WiFi 7 even necessary? And what can it do? Here, you can learn the differences between WiFi 7 and WiFi 6. 

 

What is Wi-Fi 7? 

 

WiFi 7, also known as 802.11be, is the next-generation WiFi standard, with the main goal of “Extremely High Throughput” (EHT). 

 

WiFi 7 is an ambitious project, focusing its innovations on the foundational PHY and MAC layers. For PHY (the physical layer), WiFi 7 introduces 320 MHz bandwidth, 4K-QAM, Multi-RU, and enhanced MU-MIMO. For better network performance, WiFi 7 uses Multi-Link Operation (MLO) to enable link aggregation at the MAC layer. Thanks to these innovative technologies, WiFi 7 further improves network throughput and reduces network latency over WiFi 6. 

 

How Has Wi-Fi Developed Over Time?

 

The first version of the 802.11 protocol was released in 1997 and provided up to 2 Mbps of speed. This was updated with 802.11ax to permit up to 9.6 Gbps, which has proven to be popular.  

 

Protocol	WiFi	Time	Speed
802.11	/	1997	Up to 2 Mbps
802.11a/b/g	WiFi	1999-2003	Up to 54 Mbps
802.11n	WiFi 4	2009	Up to 600 Mbps
802.11ac	WiFi 5	2013	Up to 6.9 Gbps
802.11ax	WiFi 6/6E	2019-2021	Up to 9.6 Gbps
802.11be	WiFi 7	2024	Up to 46 Gbps

 

 

Wi-Fi 7 vs Wi-Fi 6: What’s The Difference? 

 

Technology	WiFi 6	WiFi 7
Standard	IEEE 802.11ax	IEEE 802.11be
Max theoretical data rate	~9.6Gbps	~46.1Gbps
Frequency band	2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz   (WiFi 6E)	2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz
Channel bandwidth	20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz  80+80 MHz, 160 MHz	Up to 320 MHz
Highest modulation order	1024 QAM  OFDMA	4096 QAM  OFDMA
Max number of spatial streams	8×8 UL/DL  MU-MIMO	16×16 UL/DL  MU-MIMO
Security	WPA3	WPA3

 

 

What's New with Wi-Fi 7?

 

WiFi 7 has been upgraded in almost every aspect, making the WLAN throughput almost 5× faster than WiFi 6. To create a more connected world, the protocol defines modifications to both the physical layer (PHY) and MAC layer. 

 

• More Bandwidth up to 320 MHz 

The opening up of the 6 GHz band has led to a cleaner and wider spectrum for WiFi. WiFi 7 innovatively put forward the 320 Mhz bandwidth mode in the 6 GHz band. It has double the throughput compared with the 160 MHz of WiFi 6. It also supports non-contiguous bandwidth, such as 160+80 MHz and 160+160 MHz. 

 

 

 

• Higher-Order 4K-QAM 

WiFi 7 further enhances the modulation order from 1024-QAM to 4096-QAM. This means each modulation symbol can carry 12 bits of data. With the same coding, 4096-QAM can achieve a 20% rate increase compared with 1024-QAM in WiFi 6. 

 

 

• More Streams and Enhanced MU-MIMO 

WiFi 7 upgrades the number of spatial streams from 8 to 16. This leads to doubling the theoretical physical transmission rate. 

 

• Multi-RU and Preamble Puncturing 

WiFi 7 introduces a more flexible resource unit (RU) allocation method. With WiFi 6, one user can only be assigned one RU, and cannot be assigned a different RU. WiFi 7 allows nodes to be assigned multiple RUs to improve resource utilization.  

 

Multi-RU is created by puncturing the operating channel. The puncturing technology can mask the channel that is occupied and use other available channels to improve channel utilization. This avoids transmitting on frequencies that are unauthorized by local regulations. 

• Multi-Link Operation (MLO) 

MLO enables link aggregation at the MAC layer, making a link mapped to a channel and band. It can provide higher throughput, lower latency, and higher reliability, which are useful to a number of applications from VR/AR to industrial IoT. 

 

 

• Multi-AP Features 

Multi-AP refers to a collection of features that rely on direct AP coordination to achieve the desired network performance goals. Different flavors of multi-AP solutions are being considered. There are several types of technology such as coordinated OFDMA (C-OFDMA), coordinated spatial reuse (CSR), coordinated beamforming (CBF), and joint transmission (JXT) will be applied to the MAC or PHY layer.